The Fundamentals of Educational Technology was my first online course that I had ever taken. The entire experience was new and rather intimidating at first. After struggling with the courseware for a couple of weeks, I was able to concentrate on the course content. We learned key components of the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology which also was new knowledge for me. I had not been exposed to any technology plan in the past. We reviewed the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) Technology Applications standards for professional educators and the Technology Applications for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for students. I have to admit, I knew very little information on either one and the information at times appeared to be in a new technical language that I was thrust into. The curriculum is a dynamic spiraling framework with four domains: Acquisition of Information, Work-Manipulation of Data, and Communication/Publishing. The most challenging assignment in the course was when we manipulated data to make informed decisions for achieving school improvement. We had to analyze the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) that evaluates schools with report cards of their yearly performance. It enlightened me to learn reasons why school personnel and leaders focus so much on these scores, since much of our state funding relies on the success of these reports. My knowledge was limited on the Texas Campus and District School Technology and Readiness (STaR) charts. But, I helped my director create a presentation for teachers to explain step by step, how to fill out the form properly. I never knew the form helps leaders devise plans for future outcomes on school campuses. Now that I am informed and see its importance, I want to inspire others to be mindful next time. Once we devised our plan from studying the AEIS reports, we had to create a presentation to place on a blog. I had some experience with blogs and appreciated the new skills that I was forced to learn while setting up one. The skills I learned from the assignments will be useful for me to share with teachers. I enjoyed the interesting readings about digital learners, new Web 2.0 tools, and creating 21st Century schools. The course discussed the controversies of strict Acceptable Use Policies in schools, Ethical behaviors, filtering, and Internet safety. Again, my knowledge was limited, but I felt the learning was beneficial in my job position. We were asked to create a wiki for use in our current job position, so I created one on Wikispaces. The challenge for me was not creating the wiki; it was getting teachers in my district to participate in the learning community. Most teachers had never heard of wikis, and were intimidated to try a new technology tool. I later introduced the wiki during some of my training sessions for district software applications. I showed participants how to login to the wiki and modeled how to add tips, links, and post discussions during the workshop. We used the tool as we gave our training session to post questions. It was received with more positive results during the training sessions.
Little Cypress Mauriceville CISD 6586 FM 1130 Orange, Texas 77632
Purpose
This wiki has been created to provide Little Cypress Mauriceville teachers with an online learning community to support technology use in the classroom. Collaboration among members is encouraged for personal growth in district programs, software applications, and for sharing innovative, rich technology lessons with each other. As the vision of the Texas Long-Range Plan of Technology states, "Addressing the Needs of Education in Texas and Planting the Seeds for a Secure Future", we want to unite together to make a difference for school improvement and to improve student achievement at LCM.
Questions
According to our Campus STaR (School Technology and Readiness) Chart at LCM in 2007-2008, we are developing in the key areas of Teacher and Learning and Educator Preparation and Development. We want to increase to Advanced or Target level next year. Having this wiki is one way to increase our knowledge and improve as a district. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I meet the needs of a 21st Century learner?
2. Do I consider myself technology literate?
3. Do I integrate technology throughout my curriculum?
4. How can I help meet the goals of our district or campus technology plan?
Members
B. Fikes- high school/Family & Consumer Sciences
C. Kimbrow- 6th & 8th grades/English Language Arts and Publication
S. Eby- 6th & 7th grades/Special Education B. Kaufman- high school/Art
L. Newman- 7th & 8th grades/Special Education
D. Harris- Elementary/Music
K. Allen- Director of Technology
J. Brown- 8th grade/American History
M. Brown- high school/Technology Media Specialist
Planning a Timeline
Teachers,
Thank you for agreeing to participate in this online learning community. We need to set up a timeline together so that we can create a plan of action for improving technology use and integration in our district. Yes, this seems like a huge task we are undertaking, but with a shared vision and commitment from each one of you, we can increase our knowledge and skills in technology. Remember that our ultimate goal is to improve student achievement and become great teachers of 21st Century Learners. Please give me your input on a date and time to meet online and set our goals.
Peggy: How about Friday , December 11th, about 9:00 pm (Let's meet to create an agenda) Cathy K.- This time is great for me. How long will it last? Debbie H.- Sounds like I'll be attending in my pj's.
Kim A. - I'm doing some Christmas shopping. I'd rather Saturday morning.
Marcia B.- I don't want to stay up too late. Let's do it quick. I'm shopping in the morning.
Peggy: Can you meet Saturday morning instead? What time Marcia will you leave to shop?
Marcia B.- I'm not going until 10:00 am. I can meet before that.
Peggy: OK, girls how about Saturday morning about 9:00 am? It will still give you a chance to sleep later than usual.
Cathy K. - That will work for me.
Debbie H. - OK, I'll be there in the morning, still in my pj's, ha! ha!
Kim A. - works for me too.
Peggy: Doesn't look like our other members are responding. If you see them, let them know the date and time to meet if they can join us. Maybe they'll log in later.
Then it looks like our first meeting online will take place Saturday morning at 9:00 and will end by 9:45. We might even be able to complete our agenda items before that ending time. See you online! Put any ideas you have for others to see on the discussion tab on this page before we meet again online to create an agenda.
Day: Saturday
Date: December 12th,
Time: 9:00am
Purpose: Create an agenda
Peggy Hale
Little Cypress Mauriceville CISD
Instructional Technology Specialist
TILT Agenda
As stated in our Timeline, brainstorming for the agenda items will be taken from Saturday through Sunday. I will take everyone's suggestions and prepare the final agenda Sunday night. We can always make changes as we ideas occur. Thank you so much for accepting the name TILT (Teachers Improving Learning with Technology) for our group. Remember new members are always welcomed so please recruit more teachers as you share your excitement and successes with others.
TILTpurpose
Improve technology integration at LCM CISD Objective:
Develop a feasible plan for teachers to improve their technology competencies while learning to be effective technology integrators. Grade Level:
K-12 Facilitator:
Kim Allen, Director of Technology Co-Facilatator:Peggy Hale, Instructional Technology Specialist TILT Agenda:
Shared Vision (5 min.) -create a shared vision (Betsy, your class can create us a logo) (Cathy, you can design the shared vision on poster) Let's all put in our ideas and then we'll let Judy take all the ideas and create one shared vision.
Video (5 min.)21st Century Learner (located on the Home Page) watch and put your cmments. This video will fire us up!
Current Technology (5 min.)create a list of the available technology that everyone has on their laptops (Marcia, you can type this list)
Prioritize our Needs (5 min.)determine the course of actions we will take (all members) We all need to know the different programs that are on our laptops; please list them even if you don't know how to use them. We will set up some training on the unfamiliar ones.
Connected Tech & TA Teks (5 min.) This is our state adopted Technology curriculum (report problems with program, new management-Learning.com) We need to commit to teach this technology curriculum so that we can help others on our campus. First item to learn is how to import students into the program, so that they can be tracked. TA Teks improvement - 8th grade students will take first test this spring; how are we covering the Teks; ideas for technology vocabulary improvement - TILT will develop four technology vocabulary lists for teachers to implement (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12)
Teacher Competencies (5 min.)new adoption of the teacher competencies; (do we want to be first group to go through levels?) (Kim & Peggy)As teachers go through the linked lessons, please give feedback and report if changes need to be made. Let's create a timeline for TILT members to complete the Competencies at their convenience. (Susan E.)
Professional Development (5 min.)- share the new online links to help with personal development for technology compentecies (Peggy)
Technology Lessons- set up monthly meeting online to share best technology lessons; attach lesson or link in this wiki by end of month (all)
January Lesson-everyone agreed that in January we will share technology lessons that integrate the Flip camera or other digital camera. If you need one, you may check one out through the Technology department. (all)
TILT Commitment Activities:
Each member will go through the new Teacher Competency Levels by the beginning of next school year. (Complete timeline will be posted)
Each member will teach 2-3 integrated technology lessons and share at least one at the end of the month.
Members will share websites pertaining to technology integration; especially those with available technology lessons for us to modify.
Members will post requests for professional development ideas (to help with technology integration)
EDLD 5306 Concepts of Educational Technology
Reflections
The Fundamentals of Educational Technology was my first online course that I had ever taken. The entire experience was new and rather intimidating at first. After struggling with the courseware for a couple of weeks, I was able to concentrate on the course content. We learned key components of the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology which also was new knowledge for me. I had not been exposed to any technology plan in the past. We reviewed the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) Technology Applications standards for professional educators and the Technology Applications for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for students. I have to admit, I knew very little information on either one and the information at times appeared to be in a new technical language that I was thrust into. The curriculum is a dynamic spiraling framework with four domains: Acquisition of Information, Work-Manipulation of Data, and Communication/Publishing. The most challenging assignment in the course was when we manipulated data to make informed decisions for achieving school improvement. We had to analyze the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) that evaluates schools with report cards of their yearly performance. It enlightened me to learn reasons why school personnel and leaders focus so much on these scores, since much of our state funding relies on the success of these reports. My knowledge was limited on the Texas Campus and District School Technology and Readiness (STaR) charts. But, I helped my director create a presentation for teachers to explain step by step, how to fill out the form properly. I never knew the form helps leaders devise plans for future outcomes on school campuses. Now that I am informed and see its importance, I want to inspire others to be mindful next time. Once we devised our plan from studying the AEIS reports, we had to create a presentation to place on a blog. I had some experience with blogs and appreciated the new skills that I was forced to learn while setting up one. The skills I learned from the assignments will be useful for me to share with teachers. I enjoyed the interesting readings about digital learners, new Web 2.0 tools, and creating 21st Century schools. The course discussed the controversies of strict Acceptable Use Policies in schools, Ethical behaviors, filtering, and Internet safety. Again, my knowledge was limited, but I felt the learning was beneficial in my job position. We were asked to create a wiki for use in our current job position, so I created one on Wikispaces. The challenge for me was not creating the wiki; it was getting teachers in my district to participate in the learning community. Most teachers had never heard of wikis, and were intimidated to try a new technology tool. I later introduced the wiki during some of my training sessions for district software applications. I showed participants how to login to the wiki and modeled how to add tips, links, and post discussions during the workshop. We used the tool as we gave our training session to post questions. It was received with more positive results during the training sessions.
Course Embedded Assignments
Blog for Week 2eir
Welcome to LCM's Technology Integration Wiki!
Little Cypress Mauriceville CISD 6586 FM 1130 Orange, Texas 77632
Purpose
This wiki has been created to provide Little Cypress Mauriceville teachers with an online learning community to support technology use in the classroom. Collaboration among members is encouraged for personal growth in district programs, software applications, and for sharing innovative, rich technology lessons with each other. As the vision of the Texas Long-Range Plan of Technology states, "Addressing the Needs of Education in Texas and Planting the Seeds for a Secure Future", we want to unite together to make a difference for school improvement and to improve student achievement at LCM.
Questions
According to our Campus STaR (School Technology and Readiness) Chart at LCM in 2007-2008, we are developing in the key areas of Teacher and Learning and Educator Preparation and Development. We want to increase to Advanced or Target level next year. Having this wiki is one way to increase our knowledge and improve as a district. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I meet the needs of a 21st Century learner?
2. Do I consider myself technology literate?
3. Do I integrate technology throughout my curriculum?
4. How can I help meet the goals of our district or campus technology plan?
Members
B. Fikes- high school/Family & Consumer SciencesC. Kimbrow- 6th & 8th grades/English Language Arts and Publication
S. Eby- 6th & 7th grades/Special Education B. Kaufman- high school/Art
L. Newman- 7th & 8th grades/Special Education
D. Harris- Elementary/Music
K. Allen- Director of Technology
J. Brown- 8th grade/American History
M. Brown- high school/Technology Media Specialist
Planning a Timeline
Teachers,
Thank you for agreeing to participate in this online learning community. We need to set up a timeline together so that we can create a plan of action for improving technology use and integration in our district. Yes, this seems like a huge task we are undertaking, but with a shared vision and commitment from each one of you, we can increase our knowledge and skills in technology. Remember that our ultimate goal is to improve student achievement and become great teachers of 21st Century Learners. Please give me your input on a date and time to meet online and set our goals.
Peggy: How about Friday , December 11th, about 9:00 pm (Let's meet to create an agenda)
Cathy K.- This time is great for me. How long will it last?
Debbie H.- Sounds like I'll be attending in my pj's.
Kim A. - I'm doing some Christmas shopping. I'd rather Saturday morning.
Marcia B.- I don't want to stay up too late. Let's do it quick. I'm shopping in the morning.
Peggy: Can you meet Saturday morning instead? What time Marcia will you leave to shop?
Marcia B.- I'm not going until 10:00 am. I can meet before that.
Peggy: OK, girls how about Saturday morning about 9:00 am? It will still give you a chance to sleep later than usual.
Cathy K. - That will work for me.
Debbie H. - OK, I'll be there in the morning, still in my pj's, ha! ha!
Kim A. - works for me too.
Peggy: Doesn't look like our other members are responding. If you see them, let them know the date and time to meet if they can join us. Maybe they'll log in later.
Then it looks like our first meeting online will take place Saturday morning at 9:00 and will end by 9:45. We might even be able to complete our agenda items before that ending time. See you online! Put any ideas you have for others to see on the discussion tab on this page before we meet again online to create an agenda.
Day: Saturday
Date: December 12th,
Time: 9:00am
Purpose: Create an agenda
Peggy Hale
Little Cypress Mauriceville CISD
Instructional Technology Specialist
TILT Agenda
As stated in our Timeline, brainstorming for the agenda items will be taken from Saturday through Sunday. I will take everyone's suggestions and prepare the final agenda Sunday night. We can always make changes as we ideas occur. Thank you so much for accepting the name TILT (Teachers Improving Learning with Technology) for our group. Remember new members are always welcomed so please recruit more teachers as you share your excitement and successes with others.
TILT purpose
Improve technology integration at LCM CISD
Objective:
Develop a feasible plan for teachers to improve their technology competencies while learning to be effective technology integrators.
Grade Level:
K-12
Facilitator:
Kim Allen, Director of Technology
Co-Facilatator:Peggy Hale, Instructional Technology Specialist
TILT Agenda:
TILT Commitment Activities: